February Flowers

frost flowers stole

yarn: colourmart cashmere heavy lace weight, blue

needles: size 6, knit picks harmony 36 inch circular

pattern: from interweave holiday 2008

this stole was a long time coming. i had wanted to make something out of frost flowers, from the cover of barbara walker's first pattern book, for awhile and i've had this cashmere lying around for a couple of years. then i came across this shawl pattern in the interweave holiday 2008 issue and thought perfect! it took me awhile to get to, with holiday gifts and sweaters for my family to get to. plus a surprise elizabeth zimmerman thrown into the mix. anyway, it took me awhile but it wound up to be perfect timing. it has been a rough couple of months for me personally and a detailed lace project was just what i needed to take my mind off of things. something else to concentrate on!

the cast on took a little more than 2 hours - 992 stitches! really crazy! but the brilliance of this project was that it got smaller (faster) as you went along - the opposite of the typical shawl. i don't really have any more notes except - make sure you mark every 50 or 100 stitches when you cast on and trust the charts - there are no erratas, it works out perfectly. there are a few more pictures up on ravelry.

right now i am working on a yoke sweater for my daughter and think hello kitty may make any appearance... i learned my lesson with my son's star wars sweater though and am making it big enough to fit for a few years!